So he hesitated in confiding sobering news that a brush with cancer last fall also has influenced him. Prebys declined to provide details, except to say he was treated at Scripps Mercy Hospital and after 100 hours of chemotherapy, is cancer free and grateful.

“That’s one of the reasons I’m so pleased to be part of the Scripps family,” he said.

His decision to give Scripps $45 million was a typical mix of analysis meets emotion.

He’s fascinated by Dr. Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute, and his work on wireless medical technology. And Prebys was impressed by construction plans he saw at the cardiovascular center’s June 21 groundbreaking. Then he met the medical director, cardiologist Dr. Paul Teirstein, and perused his resume.

“It was larger than my phonebook back in South Bend, Indiana,” where Prebys grew up, he joked.

When he finalized his gift, Prebys startled Van Gorder by asking if he could hug him.

“A deal has to grab me and make me want to jump up and down,” Prebys said. “It’s that way with business and it’s that way with philanthropy.”

Van Gorder said Prebys’ donation allows Scripps to speed up renovations and expansions at its hospitals in Encinitas, Hillcrest and Chula Vista.

“All of this gift will go directly to the cardiovascular institute because that’s what Conrad requested,” he said. “But this gift will benefit the whole community.”

Prebys’ gift was second only to the philanthropy Ellen Browning Scripps provided to found the original Scripps Hospital that opened in 1924, Van Gorder said.

“This gift will allow us to always remember Conrad Prebys and make him forever part of our history,” he said.

Prebys’ history — really, a love affair — with San Diego began in 1965, when he moved from South Bend at age 32. He’d grown up in a big family with a small income. His father was a tool-and-die maker and the family that crowded into the small house included his parents, four brothers, his grandmother and an uncle.

At age 7, Prebys had his first medical run-in when he stepped on a belt buckle and was bedridden for a year with an infection that affected his heart. He recovered and went on to college, worked as a mid-level manager at a steel company — he still looks pained recalling being forced, at age 24, to lay off men twice his age — before leaving to run a pizzeria with his brothers.

He came with little money to San Diego to visit a brother, then decided to stay. Here was a beautiful place “where I could make a buck,” he recalled.

He got a job selling $6,990 starter homes. A year later, he and partner Tom Sparrow founded Progress Construction. In 1979, he bought out Sparrow.

With a collapsing housing market in the 1980s, Presbys started building storage facilities and then low-cost eight- and 10-unit apartment buildings.

Today, his Conrad Prebys Trust ranks among the county’s largest land owners, with 86 properties. His $4.5 million in property taxes last year was 17th highest countywide, county records show. His company has offices in Pacific Beach and El Cajon.